Lynn Acton - Alternatives to Dominance Based Horsemanship - S2 E12

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Tune in to hear Lynn Acton, acclaimed author and horse trainer, share practical tips on how to build trust and connection with your horse. Learn about the basics of earning trust, using clear body language, moving away from dominance based training, and understanding horses' emotions. Lynn also talks about being a protector leader and what horses really want from us. Get simple and actionable advice for creating a strong bond with horses and keeping them happy by avoiding unnecessary stress. Whether you're a horse enthusiast or just curious, Lynn's down-to-earth wisdom makes it easy to connect with these amazing animals.

https://www.empathetic-trainer.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Barbara O'Brien.
I'm an animal trainer andphotographer, and I'd like to
welcome you to the AmphitheticTrainer.
Hello, I'm Barbara O'Brien andyou're listening to the
Amphithetic Trainer.
Today's guest is Lynn Acton.
Lynn Acton is an author, horsetrainer and certified riding

(00:35):
instructor.
Her book what Horses ReallyWant Unlocking the Secrets to
Trust, cooperation andReliability is a must-read for
any horse person who wants to dobetter for their horse.
Lynn believes the key to a goodrelationship with your horse is
putting yourself in their shoesto figure out what they need
from you.
Well, I couldn't agree more,lynn, and we're really happy to

(00:56):
have you here with us today.
Thank you for being on our show.
That's my pleasure, barbara.
Well, I'm a big fan.
Let me start right there.
I have your book.
It's kind of beat up becauseI've read it.
That's ridiculous.
More than once, and so we'recertainly talk about this, but I
wish we had lots of timebecause all the great stuff that

(01:18):
you had to share with us, Ijust think horses are going to
be better for it, and so we'regrateful that you put it in a
book form and that also peoplecan follow you on social media
and communicate with you andclinics and everything that you
do.
So we're grateful for that.
So again, thanks for being here.
Okay, so, with horses, I lovethat a little bit of breed buys

(01:42):
here, but you're Arabians.
I just want to start withArabian.
I've had Arabs and I love them.
I was an Arab horse groupie backin the 80s when I was a
teenager.
I'd go to the Region 10 horseshow at St Paul, the hippodrome
in St Paul, at the fairgroundsand like walk around the barn
and go do you need help?
Can I brush your horse, can I?

(02:03):
And people took pity on me andwould let me brush their
beautiful show Arabians and workwith them and so really have a
soft spot for them.
So reading your book becauseyou talk about you Arabians a
lot was a joy, because theydon't tell anybody, because I
have all Morgans now but I stillthink Arabs are, like some of
the smartest horses out there.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I think there's a lot of similarities nice
similarities between Arabiansand Morgans.
I have to tell you the funnystory behind this is, before I
got bronze, I said I will never,ever have an Arabian.
Everything is a spooky airhead.
I had that bias and I was horsehunting and I looked for two
years and I was not findinganything and somebody finally

(02:44):
said, oh, just go look at someArabians.
I know a good breeder, he has alot of good horses, and I met
bronze and I watched hisinteraction with his breeder and
I watched how athletic he wasand I thought that is the horse
I've been looking for all mylife.
So you never pay to have a breedbias.
It's the individual horse.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh, you know, that's really, really true, although
I'm kind of biased with myMorgans right now, but I've
always had Morgans too.
I like both breeds equally well.
Just a side note, because wewere talking about how wonderful
Arabs are.
I have four sons and many Mises, and back in the it must have

(03:25):
been 90s, when horses were quiteexpensive like they are now I
had the girls who were teenagersyoung teenagers write letters
to breeders saying do you have aretired show horse that we can
give a wonderful home for?
Because we couldn't afford tobuy horses, like you know what
people needed for them at thetime.
And so we ended up with quite afew dollar horses.
I think we ended up with fouror five dollar horses.

(03:45):
So my Mises rode and showed themin 4-H and my sons had the
pleasure of riding Arabs.
And so we had a wonderful horsenamed St Croix Ramallah, who
was a region I'm sorry, in thenationals.
He was in the top 10 of Westernpleasure and he was retired to
us and we had him at the rest ofhis life and you could not have
asked for a better kid's horse.
I mean, he was the kindest.

(04:07):
Well, his name was we call himReno and he was the kindest,
best boy you know.
And then I had a retired showmare.
Mercedes loved her, so so mucha hard horse there.
And then my other son, or wehad another horse, kijiba, who
was also a national champion inhis retirement.
So they came with a lot ofexperience but kind, kind hearts

(04:28):
.
So they were great, great kidshorses.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
I was going to say that was the best model for kids
to grow up with.
The boldest, bravest riders Iknow grew up riding horses that
they trusted would take care ofthem, and that's just a great
way to get a kid set up forconfidence and skills.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Oh, it's really true.
And now I have grandchildren,and they're getting to be, you
know, starting to get old enoughto ride, you know.
And the best, most fun part,though, is my youngest grandson,
who's two is decidedly horsecrazy, and I'm just thrilled
because he comes out and he goeshorse.
And it's like we have to gohorse.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
So hopefully we catch one or two.
This is the last role thatgrandkids come visit is we have.
We have horse time, ExactlyYou're the cool, cool grandma
for sure.
Right, yeah, I think so, yes.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Okay, well, I'm going to start off with.
I want to talk about your book.
I'm going to hold it up againwhat horses really want, which
we'll talk where people can findthat as we get to the end.
But there's a quote that youtalk about.
When riding and training myhorses, I was forever trying to
put myself in the place of theanimal and to think from his

(05:44):
point of view.
So how did that come about?
So I'm going to start from whenyou were young and what your
experience was like with horseswhen you were young.
Like tell us the beginning, anddid you always feel that way,
or was there a shift, you know,as you became more aware of
horses and their feelings?

Speaker 1 (06:02):
I always felt that way.
As a young child, I wasencouraged to be empathetic
toward animals and think abouttheir point of view.
And then, when I was old enoughto read Colonel Podyski's books
and I saw that quote from him Ithought that that really sums
it up.
If you look at things from thehorse's point of view, it makes
everything so much easierbecause they have emotions.

(06:25):
They have feelings and if youunderstand what the feeling is
behind their behavior, then youcan get to the heart of what's
going on and then you can end upwith a relationship where you
have a horse who wants to beyour cooperative partner, rather
than a situation where you'retrying to drum obedience into

(06:46):
them.
So I was.
I always had a natural empathyfor horses, and as a kid and I
think a lot of young women feelthis way I had the feeling that
I sort of understood what theyfelt, and a lot of us are taught
then well, but they don't havefeelings.
And that was that was reallyscientific view back in the 90s

(07:06):
of well, animals don't havefeelings, it's all about
instinct and conditioning.
Well, as a kid I knew they hadfeelings and I tuned into them
and I think that really helpedme get along with them better,
so that that is why I love thatquote from Colonel Podyski is if
you think about things from thehorse's point of view but then

(07:26):
you end up being cooperativepartners instead of having this
boss-servant sort ofrelationship.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Oh, absolutely, I have the book.
I have a couple of his books,so I know what you're talking
about.
That's pretty cool.
Let's start.
How did you get into horses?
Did you get?
Were you lucky enough to growup with them, or?

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yes or no.
I was horse crazy from the time.
I knew what a horse was like,like so many of us, and the only
option I could find for ridingas a kid was a horse dealer, an
elderly horse dealer who letkids ride horses in return for
doing a garden chores, and so itmeant I rode whatever horses

(08:11):
were there.
I got very little instruction.
Just what some of the oldergirls told me so very much I had
to figure out for myself bycoordinating with the horses and
by reading whatever I couldfind, and bless those librarians
.
My school and communitylibraries had the best books on
nonfiction books on horses,especially Margaret Cable Self,

(08:34):
who was the great horse maker,you're speaking my language.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I have several of her books too, treasures.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yes and yeah, and horse mastership was like my
reference and so I learned a lotfrom reading and then I just
tried it out on the horses andit got to ride a lot of
different horses.
So that was a very differenteducation than kids get these
days, where most of their ridingis supervised.
Mine was completelyunsupervised and I did some

(09:03):
amazingly stupid things and ohyeah.
And it's great if the horsesfor the fact that.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
I'm still here.
Yeah, no, I was really.
I had an elderly woman that hada farm and I exchanged riding
not even riding lessons, justthe opportunity to ride for
chores.
And we were just like everySaturday we do morning, we do
chores in the morning and we getto ride all afternoon.
And like she didn't even comeoutside, we were able to just go

(09:28):
and do and, of course, welearned how to ride bareback and
we probably weren't asthoughtful of those horses as we
could have been looking back asa teenager, but they would let
us know if we'd gone too far.
You know, if we were going toomuch, they'd stop dead, we'd
look, flying off.
And you learned like, okay,maybe you're not thrilled with,
you know cantering this much.
So we learned like, you know,okay, we should be a little more

(09:49):
sensitive about your feelings.
So yeah, exactly, I do feellike we were kind of lucky in a
way, because we certainly got alot of confidence and you know
we're able to be very confidentriders.
So that part was a good thing.
But, and no helmets, nothinglike that.
I'm really grateful for thingslike helmets.
Nobody wore helmets in thosedays, no, but I'm grateful

(10:14):
because I did have a seriousfall on an Arabian mare not her
fault at all.
She was telling me no, really,I had her way over threshold.
This is before I knew what Iknow.
Now I'm trying to get smarterevery day about things and and
got bucked off.
I was riding bareback with ahalter and got bucked off and
broke my pelvis in three spots,but I'm long recovered.

(10:35):
This was back in 2020.
But the helmet is whatprotected me from like really
having a serious concussion,because I know I landed hard on
my head.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I had quite a few concussions, I suspect as a kid,
and decided I really don't needany more.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
So we are in agreement, we are pro helmet,
pro helmet.
Everybody wear your helmet,Okay, All right.
So I'd like to talk to youabout kind of the theme of your
book, which is protectorleadership.
Do you want to kind of runthrough that a little bit?
For for people that may not,you know, a lot of our audience
is going to be new to horses orhave horses, but new ways of

(11:13):
thinking about horses, because Ifeel there is a real shift
going on about dogs and cats andhorses and dogs have been there
for a while but the shift inhow we're thinking about horses,
where we are understanding thatof course they have feelings
and of course they're going toact like horses and the more we
know about that the better.
So maybe you can run us throughthat a little bit.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, the difference is that traditionally, horse
training has been focused andespecially with the introduction
of natural horsemanship, verymuch focused on what we want
horses to do for us and how wecan make them do what we want.
How do we get them to performbetter, how do we get them to
behave better, how do we getthem to stop spooking?

(12:03):
And it's all about what they do.
It's about moving the feet andcontrolling the behavior, and it
completely ignores that allbehavior is prompted by emotions
.
Emotions are there to help aspecies survive, so they control
the behavior.
And if we look more at theemotions behind the behavior,

(12:25):
then we can elicit cooperationand even devotion from horses
who really want.
What they really want is tofeel safe, and I discovered this
.
I mean, I think most of us kindof intuitively know this and in
spite of some of the trainingtechniques many of us were

(12:47):
taught I think a lot of people,especially women, tend to be
more empathetic and nurturing,and so, in spite of the
techniques we're taught, a lotof us have attempted to make
that emotional connection with ahorse that helps a horse feel
safe, but nobody that I couldfind in any of the books that I

(13:08):
read really looked at itdirectly from the point of view
of let's look at the emotionsand meet the horse's emotional
need and make that the integralpart of our relationship, our
handling and our training.
And what pushed me way intodoing this?

(13:29):
Because I was kind of workingaround the edges of it I got a
foster pony.
I said I told the rescue I'lltrain him so he can be more,
train him for riding, so he canbe more adaptable.
And he came and they said hewas a good old boy.
We pony kids off of him and doall kinds of stuff.
And he was anxious and anxioushorses are not safe horses.

(13:52):
So I tried what I thought was areally radical experiment.
Said you look at him cross-eyedand he's like, oh no, oh no,
what did I do wrong?
So I tried what I thought was areally radical experiment.
I said I'm going to use as muchpositive reinforcement as I
know, I'm going to cut back.
And well, the results reallystunned me.

(14:14):
They kept meeting me at thepasture gate every day like, oh
hi, I'm glad to see you.
And there was no regression.
I thought horses were alwayssupposed to regress when you
were training.
There was no regression, therewas no resistance.
I did some click and treat withhim, but after a while he
didn't even bother looking forthe treats.
I clicked to say, hey, you didthat exactly right.

(14:35):
And he's like, oh good, what dowe do next?
Oh, yes, for sure.
It actually was like I'mwaiting for this guy to blow up
because this is just too good tobe true, way too good to be
true.
So something's got to go wrong.
Right, and I was actuallynervous about riding him for a
while, but nothing went wrong.
And after eight months the firstprospective adopters came to

(14:58):
meet him.
They adopted him and off hewent and they said, well,
something really interestinghappened here.
But was it just him?
Did I just have Pony Einstein,who was just like, so smart he
got everything from your phone.
I got to find that.
So I called the rescue and theysaid what a tougher pony to

(15:18):
train next time.
She said, oh, I know, just ponyfor you.
So I went to meet her and thenice lady at the rescue turned
Brandy loose in their big arenaso we could meet her, and then
she couldn't catch her.
This is the lady who fed andcared for this pony for three

(15:38):
years, and the mere presence ofmy husband and myself as
strangers had Brandy soterrified that she wouldn't even
let her familiar person catchher.
I said, ok, there's somethingmore to this than what I thought
.
So when she got my concession,was getting frustrated and

(16:00):
embarrassed and I said how aboutif I see what I can do?
Because catching a horse iskind of a specialty of mine.
Because I don't catch them, Ileft them to catch me.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
That's there you go.
There you go Before let's.
Let's explain that, becausethat is so true.
I don't catch them, I let themcatch me.
That is a really greatprinciple.
If you could just go into that,we'll continue the story about
Brandy.
But how does that work?
Because everybody, a lot ofpeople, have trouble with
catching the horses or beingcaught.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
I tell them that I'm not going to pressure you.
So I stand very quiet, put myhead down, just sort of relaxed
and slouchy, and after a whilerunning around and around, she
started looking at me like oh,you're not chasing me, you're

(16:57):
not trying to catch me.
And when she looked at me, Ibacked up a step.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
And that said to her.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
I'm not going to pressure you.
I saw you look at me and askedme to back up.
So I did.
And every time she looked at meI backed up a step and then
after a while she started toslow down.
I backed up another step.
Every time she did what I washoping for the looking at me and
the slowing down I backed up astep and after a while she

(17:29):
slowed down and started watchingme like well, you're kind of a
strange person.
People don't usually do whatyou're doing Exactly.
And after it was 15 or 20minutes she just walked over to
me.
I didn't touch her right awaybecause that would have been a
pressure again and spoke to herlike so I just stood there and

(17:49):
let her stand in front of me andthen I kind of turned carefully
and stood next to her so sheand I were facing the same way
Reached up, scratched her neckshe didn't go away, but I
figured that was enough.
She said, okay, I'm done, and Iwalked back to the gate where
my husband was standing with thedirector of the rescue and

(18:11):
Brandy followed me.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
And I thought this is interesting.
She's really connected.
And for the next half hour wetalked about plans and what to
do about Brandy, and for theentire time she stood there next
to me and I thought I don'tknow what to do with this,
because if you just look at thishorse, it's pressure.
How do I train with no pressure?
How do I handle the horse withno pressure?

(18:36):
You know, I'd gone with thefirst foster pony, I'd reduced
it, but this time I had to usenone.
So I really didn't know what Iwas going to do with her.
But she was still standingthere next to me, looking calm,
and I'm thinking I can't justleave her, I have to try.
I have to try, I can't leaveher.

(18:58):
So I said, yep, this was fall.
I said yep, bring her to us inthe spring.
And I had all winter to go.
Okay, what the heck am I goingto do now?
So I pulled together all of mybackgrounds with horsemanship,
which it was very varied.
I grew up riding hunt seat,I've ridden in the Western, I've
done a classical massage that's, massage for horses, not the

(19:21):
ribbons.
I've done musical freestyle.
So I've learned things from allthose different places.
And then I have an academicbackground in sociology and
system science.
So I kind of pulled thattogether my horsemanship,
information and background andresearch and started looking at
what did other people do whenfaced with a horse like this.

(19:44):
Kim Warns talked a lot about thegray goose and how he was a
problem for everybody and evenfor her at first, and what she
did to work with him.
And Frederick Peñón of theCavalier talked about Tumpado,
his very difficult so ended upbeing one of the stars of his
show.
So I got a lot of philosophy.
Everybody could explain thephilosophy of you just don't

(20:07):
pressure on the horse Well, yeah, but then what do you do with
them?
And nobody was explaining howto implement this.
Like, yeah, yeah, I'm all onboard with the philosophy, but
how do I go about doing it?
They really got really lucky.
When we delivered our firstfoster pony to his new home,
there was another pony there whowas absolutely petrified of

(20:29):
people.
I mean so petrified that whenwe looked at her over her stall
door she plastered herself tothe wall in terror.
A couple months later I heardthat a young trigger was working
with her and doing really well.
I said I got to see this.
So he graciously gave me thedemonstration.
He walked up to the pony'sstall door and stood sideways to

(20:53):
the pony not facing her butsideways and just held the
holder and after about fiveminutes she came over and let
him put the halter on her head.
He said the first time it tookhim half an hour just standing
there waiting and then, with thehalter on her, he walked out
the door, down the barn aisle,across the driveway into the

(21:14):
indoor arena and she wasplastered to his side like an
obedience dog at heel and thelead line never went tight.
He went.
When they got her in the indoorhe took the lead line off and
she continued to follow himeverywhere.
And I was thinking well, howdid he teach her to do this?

(21:34):
He didn't.
It was all in his body language.
He made himself a safe place tobe by not pressuring her.
He didn't approach her, he lether approach him and so he
became a safe haven for her andafter a while he took the lead

(21:54):
line off.
She kept following him and thenall of a sudden she left,
zoomed off around the arena, ranaround a little bit, started
playing with poles and poke hernose into this, that and the
other thing.
I thought, okay, he's gettingembarrassed if this lapsed,
right.
So I said what are you doingnow?
He says nothing, she'll be back.
Okay, well, pretty soon shepoked her nose into something.

(22:22):
It fell over.
She scared herself.
She ran back and she plasteredherself to his side, just like a
full runs back to mama andplastered himself to her side.
When she scared here's my saythat's when the light bulb went
on in my head.
She gave her the choice toleave.
She never felt trapped, shenever felt pressured.

(22:43):
Then I had a clue where to startwith Brandy, and that's exactly
how it worked.
When Brandy came, I'd turn herout in my arena.
I thought, well, if I turn herout in my three acre pasture, I
might not catch her for a wholehail.
This would actually look good.
So I put her in the arena andthen I would go and work in the
arena.
I pull weeds or rearrangeequipment and she'd watch me and

(23:08):
then she'd leave off grazing.
And the next thing I knew andthis was only a couple of days
she had her nose in the middleof whatever I was doing, I'm
cool.
She's like, can I help you withthat moving equipment, like can
I check this out with you?
And so she wanted to be with me.
She started following me around.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
And this was because there was no pressure.
Not asking her to do anythingat this point.
You're just building arelationship by not using
pressure.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Exactly what horses really want is to feel safe, and
a horse who has beentraumatized has learned that
people are not safe, and thathad been Brandi's experience.
She was found wandering looseferal here in upstate New York
where we're not supposed to haveferal horses, and so she had to
be trapped and herded onto atrailer to be taken to the

(23:59):
rescue.
So there's trauma.
And then she went to adominance oriented trainer for
30 days training and I suspectthat pretty much did her in,
because he was the one whodelivered her to us and we could
.
She was absolutely petrified tohim so we had that to overcome.
So she needed some time to besatisfied that people might be

(24:27):
safe.
But I was lucky she decidedpretty quickly that I was safe
and then that began to extend toother people.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
I was gonna ask you about that, if it extended, yeah
.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
And I don't know what makes the difference, because
some horses will find somebodythey feel safe with and that's
it Then.
Maybe it's just because theother people around them don't
give off safe vibes.
But once Brandi got to knowdifferent people here, I was the
main person who handled her andmy husband would come in the

(25:03):
barn and engage with her, but hewas a dog person before he was
a horse person, so his wholeapproach to animals is just as
very friendly.
Hey, would you like somescratchin' and some patin' in
each other?
That's my husband as well.
Yeah, yeah, and it's great formaking a nice connection with
the horse.
So from Brandi's point of viewit's like, okay, it looks like

(25:24):
everybody here's safe and kindof by a natural selection
process, anybody who comes toour farm likes animals, so I
think that vibe goes over to thehorses.
Right now we have a repешь Life, but I have to say that as a
new lonely and friend for meit's a wonderful feeling.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
For me, it's a pretty special feel of it.
It's the same when I was athome, I mean as family.
You came out and I was all awayfrom home to spend Christmas
with.
I don't get no car.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
All I understand is youPer Lavive lives a positive
history, that I wasn't going topressure her and that made me a
safe person, safe place to be,and that's really what horses
want.
And she showed that the veryfirst day that I met her at the
rescue farm, when she waswilling to come over to me and
follow me to the gate and waitthere with me.
So sometimes you see that withthe horse immediately.

(26:22):
Other times it can take a while, especially if horses have
known a lot of people that werenot trustworthy and they've just
sort of decided basically thehuman race is best avoided, and
so then it can take longer.
If you have a horse that'sinteresting and the horse might
go investigate it and that sortof triggers curiosity, which is

(26:44):
a positive feeling, and ifyou're associated with something
positive like that, then that'spoints in your favor or you go
investigate something new Maybethere's treats involved too, or
little bits of choice hay orsomething and then the horse
gets curious.
So if you have a horse who'sjust plain avoiding people now

(27:06):
Brandy clearly wanted to findsomebody to trust and she said
Lynn, you're it, but otherhorses will just plain avoid,
and in that case you need tomake yourself interesting or
engage in something interestingthat arouses their curiosity,
and if you're associated withcuriosity and being able to
investigate things and maybediscover fun treats or a toy to

(27:27):
play with, then that makes youbecome an appealing person to be
with.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
It's very effective Because we are mammals, animals,
mammals the same as horses andother animals.
It's as an animal actor trainerwhich is my main job.
It's very, very true, becausesheep respond the same way as a
horse would Like.
If you run up to a flock ofsheep that do not know you, of
course they're going to scatterBecause you're a threat, you're

(27:57):
tall, you're a human, they don'tknow you.
But if you go in and you standand you wait and you're quiet, I
find that the sheep are curiousand they're going to come.
They're going to come slowly aslong as you're not making
threatening moves Because youare so interesting and you find
that with cattle I mean cattleare dangerous to the point of
curiosity, because I've learneda herd of cattle can be very

(28:21):
curious and then they'll push toget into you because they
really want to know you're there.
So you got to be careful withcattle.
And then children.
If you are quiet and respectfuland interesting, instead of
going like baby, children willcome around because now they're
like and you're very interesting.
And of course we all know thisabout cats If you do not
pressure a cat and glom onto acat, he's going to come to you

(28:44):
and that's why people go.
I don't like cats.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Why is that cat coming here?

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Because you are so interesting giving off that vibe
.
Yeah, so it's very, very true.
I was going to talk a littlebit just quickly about the three
mustangs Keep calling themmustangs because they are on the
range, but they were my mordansthat I got from Westwood
Mordans out in Montana who livedon the range.
The two yearlings were superpeople oriented.

(29:08):
Even though they hadn't beenhandled much, they've been well
cared for.
They were raised and heard onthe range.
They are super friendly, likeright there, always wonderful.
But the one that came as afour-year-old that had a lot
more time being more worriedabout everything around her and
her environment and not having alot of human contact.
And it took several weeks ofjust quiet exactly what you're

(29:31):
talking about Quiet curiosityuntil she would come and put her
head in a halter on her ownwill.
And it's taken months, a wholeseason, because I've had her a
little over a year now to workwith such quiet presence, quiet
presence so that she's startingto trust me and it just takes
time.
But I feel like as we gothrough this process this horse

(29:53):
will climb a tree for me, likewe are in such tune with each
other because I don't push her,I don't pressure her.
I let her decide what she wantsto be with me and work on
things together.
And it's so gratifying BecauseI was going to send her back.
In the beginning.
I was like she's so anxious, soanxious and after getting hurt

(30:17):
on that prior horse, I didn'twant to get hurt again and I
can't trust her.
But now that we're building allthis, it's so gratifying.
So I understand how you feltabout Brandy when it finally did
click.
How gratifying that must havefelt and we can talk some more
about that.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, I started using my body language.
Well, I was already using mybody language, of course, right
from the start, but then Istarted asking her to walk with
me and using synchronization orcopying, which is something that
young horses will play withthemselves, and Phillies in

(30:54):
particular play games of likelet's move in step.
And so when I walked because Ihad to lead her to and from the
barn for daily turnout andeverything but I would make sure
that we were walking in step sothat we were matching steps and

(31:14):
if I speed it up, she'd speedup, If I slowed down, she'd slow
down, and so I could lead herwith a loose lead and there was
no pressure.
Now, you might say that askingher to move with me was some
sort of pressure, but it wassomething that she was
comfortable with, and so thatwas how a lot of her ground
training went.
Was I never used pressure on ahalter or lead?

(31:35):
I used my body language to saylet's go here, let's go there,
and I would signal turns and Iwould use my voice for walk,
trot, halt back up.
So she was learning those byassociation, but she was mostly
learning them what I wanted bywatching my body language and
she's very subtle.

(31:55):
If I wanted her to back up, Iwould just lean my body back a
little bit.
She's like oh, OK, we're goingbackwards now and turn my
shoulders, Like OK, we're goingto go this way, we're going to
go that way.
So she naturally yeah, we werekind of naturally coordinating.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Well, horses are wired to read body language,
obviously, because otherwisethey run into each other in the
herd.
When they're running, they runinto each other, so they have to
know that space and horses arereally as you know.
Of course, horses are verysubtle, with just the tilt of a
head and ear to tell anotherhorse back off or no, you're
welcome to come play with me, oranything that they're trying to

(32:38):
communicate.
And so, of course, our favoriteheart horses, the ones that we
love the most, are the ones thatread us the best, even if we
didn't know what we were doing.
But they were so accommodatingand just a shift of a hip bone
we would turn, like they wouldturn before you think turn
because they're so in tune withyou.
And what a great relationship.

(32:59):
And they had horses like thatbefore I knew what was going on.
I was really blessed that wayto have those.
Of course it wasn't great.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
I think they tend to be pretty subtle.
I think most people don'trealize how much most of us use
body language.
That's very much at odds withwhat horses are interpreting it,
as Horses are so subtle.
I had taught Brandy as we movedalong and I started using more
hand signals and voice commands.

(33:29):
I taught Brandy to back up if Itapped the ear with my finger
and that was working.
What she was beside me and thenwhen she was in front of me,
she wasn't backing up.
No matter what I did, shewasn't backing up and I finally
realized I forgot to lean back.
The finger didn't mean a wholelot, but my body had to be in
the right position, and thething about this is that we

(33:52):
don't get to decide what theright answer is, and this was
where making this shift for mewas a huge, huge leap of faith,
because you can't say the horsesdisobeyed me.
When you're using body language, you need to think in terms of
that's how she interpreted whatI did.

(34:12):
So when I stood there andtapped the ear with my finger
and she didn't back up, shewasn't being disobedient, she
was doing exactly what sheunderstood.
I said, which was nothing whenI leaned back, then she
understood.
So for me this was a wholeprocess of discovery and I would
have to say, ok, I did this andBrandy did that, not the thing

(34:36):
that I thought I was telling herto do.
So, ok, so that's how I saythat it's like going to a
foreign country.
You don't tell them how they'regoing to speak their language.
You have to figure out how tospeak in the way that they
understand you.
And that was the process I wasgoing through with Brandy, and
she's so subtle that horses seeall kinds of things that we

(35:00):
don't realize we're doing.
And then we also need tointerpret the body language that
they use in terms of theemotions behind it.
We went for a walk one day.
I was taking Brandy up thedriveway.
We were just going to take alittle walk down the road.
Well, the recycle bin had beenspilled I think raccoons partied

(35:24):
that night or something andthere's stuff all over the place
and from the bottom of thedriveway Brandy could just see
this mess up there and shedidn't want to go.
But she didn't turn to pull meback to the barn.
She body blocked me and Icouldn't get around her to go up
the driveway and show her look,this is really OK, honey.

(35:45):
Instead, she had me bodyblocked.
I couldn't go up there.
So fortunately, I saw myhusband.
I called my husband.
I told her what was going on.
I said can you go up to therecycle bin and show Brandy that
this is safe?
And she watched.
And she watched and she let mego first.
And eventually we got to thetop of the driveway and then I

(36:10):
started picking things up andputting them back in the recycle
bin and she had her nose in themiddle of it.
It's like, oh, let me inspectthis thing, let me inspect that
thing.
But the thing about her bodyblocking me is that she was in
my space.
She was pressed against my bodyand a lot of people would have
said, oh no, she's in your space, she's trying to dominate you,
she's trying to tell you what todo.
She was trying to keep me safe.

(36:32):
Lin, that's something's notright up there.
We should not be going up thereand I don't want you getting
hurt either.
So you stay down here where wedo it safe.
So we need to really be carefulabout the interpretations A lot
of people have been programmedto interpret based on dominance
theory, which says horses wantto be dominant, so they're
always trying to tell you whatto do and if you give them half

(36:54):
an inch, they'll take a mile,and that's not what's going.
On Horses having.
We were talking about emotionsearlier and different mammals
reacting similarly to horses.
All mammals share the sameseven core emotions.
That is like a whole podcast initself, which is, in its
top-ranked, absolutelyfascinating and anybody who

(37:15):
wants to pursue this, absolutelyyes.
Two great resources are watchRachel Bedingfield's videos on
the seven core emotions orsigned up for one of Carolina
Westlin's online courses.
She has a couple of great freeshort courses on animal emotions

(37:35):
and when you startunderstanding what's going on
with them emotionally, itexplains so much behavior and it
shows that they really do onlywant to have cooperative
relationships with people,because horse herds unlike that
big myth horse herds do notsurvive on dominance, on a

(37:56):
dominance hierarchy.
They survive by cooperation.
Right, and everybody looks outfor everybody.
The adults are responsible forthe kids.
Everyone looks out for eachother and so once they connect
with us, they look out for us,and I've heard some incredible
stories of horses looking outfor their people, even when it

(38:17):
meant a horse putting herself indanger.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Right.
Do you remember the story aboutthe in Canada?
I believe it was in Canada inthe mountains.
A woman was leading a troughride of tourists and a grizzly
came out of nowhere and wascharging the boy on a horse, you
know, and her horse, like Ithink, if I remember the story
right, just leapt in between andknocked the grizzly over.

(38:44):
If I remember like, ran intothe grizzly, totally not what
horses would do, but to protectthe other horses and the
tourists in the girl riding,like she drove the horse.
It's big gelding, drove thehorse or drove the grizzly away,
completely against what horsesdo around bears, I mean.
Normally they're going to belike we're gone.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
But that's the protective instinct.
So that's why I ended upcalling our role being a
protector leader, because whenwe show the horse that they're
safe with us, that sets up thatmutual social bond that horses
have in a natural herd.

(39:23):
And once they feel that bond,then this protection becomes
reciprocal.
I protect my horses, theyprotect me, and this has become
Brandy's Brandy's role in ourherd.
She's a she's her selfappointed protector in the herd
and if she thinks something iswrong she lets me know.

(39:46):
She saw my, my grandson one timelaying face down in the snow.
Well, he's from Virginia.
Snow is a great novelty.
He was having fun.
She didn't know that she sawhis inert body face down.
She ran around the barn towhere I was doing chores,
winning frantically, and it wasthere.
She wanted me to follow her.
This is like the end of a TVshow Follow me, lynn.

(40:07):
You've got to come withsomething really, really wrong.
And I had.
And so I talked to my grandson.
I said you need to tell Brandyyou're okay.
And he talked to her, but shewas not satisfied until he got
up, walked into the paddock andgive her a big hug.
Then she was like boy.
I thought something was reallywrong there.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Right, no, you're.
That's a great story.
What a great horse.
Yeah, I my, my Rita, the mayorI was talking about that was
anxious, who you know.
Day by day we're getting betterhas.
You know body of things that shedoes.
That if the wrong person wasaround, it would misinterpret,
because I've discovered that,because first we started working
through the fence when it cameto handling her body, and parts

(40:50):
of her body was through thefence for her safety in mind,
because she was so reactive shewould whip her rear end around
and threaten to kick.
You know, there was always thisthreat that I'm going to kick
you.
And so instead of discipliningher, punishing her for a natural
instinct when she was worried,I would just work through the
fence instead and let her on herown terms.

(41:11):
Let me touch her and handle it.
Well, I discovered she loves tohave her butt scratched.
I mean that sounds awful, butyou know she loves to butt by
her tail and her thighs and herscratch.
It's just like heaven, heaven.
And so she learned that, wowyou, if you threw the fence,
you're scratching me.
Now you can handle my backhooks through the fence, you
know, because she's her butt'sright up against the fence,
because she would rub on it andI go oh, you want your butt

(41:31):
scratch.
So over time, she learned thatthat's a great reward.
And so now, when I, now, whenI'm working with her, we're not
using the fence and I'm justwhen I say, okay, we're going to
just hang, we're just going tobe here together, she will.
She will turn, whether she's ona halter or not, like I'm doing
chores, or she will turn andput her butt to me, which is her
language.
Oh, please, let's play thatgame.
This is my favorite.

(41:51):
But if you didn't understandthat her, where her, her ears,
her eyes, her expression wassoft, why she's turning her butt
, if you didn't understand that,you know you'd be hell God, I'm
my space.
Well, you know it would changeeverything.
So, so I'm, I am careful to belike I'm deciding to do this,
we're doing this together,instead of like you can't just

(42:14):
always, you know, come and like,knock me down or something.
We're going to allow thatsafety like you talk about.
But we have a relationship andnow, for a long time, people
will go like well, why couldn'tyou just do it?
But for a long time she didn'twant to give her back feet, and
so how could we have the failureto trim her back feet if she
didn't feel safe enough in ournew, you know, in her
environment to pick up her backfeet?
So we, she's learned thatscratch, scratch, scratch,

(42:35):
scratch, scratch.
I'm going to ask for your foota little bit, thank you, she
gives a little bit.
Go ahead, give her the footback.
Scratch, scratch, scratch,scratch, scratch.
Can I have your foot, pleasepick up a little bit, scratch,
you know.
So it's like something pleasanthappens when we pick up those
back feet, and so now over timeI mean it's spent a lot of time
rewarding but she's learningthat it's perfectly safe to give

(42:55):
me those feet.
And I've got a wonderfultrainer.
I'm working with a young galthat she was on my podcast,
tiffany Stoffer, who was aLiberty horse trainer, and so
there's a lot of asking yesquestions, and so Rita's
learning that these are good yesquestions and that we're not
going to pressure her to dosomething that frightens her,
upsets her, makes her feelreactive and defensive.
And so what?

(43:16):
Your, your book has talked allabout that, and that's where we,
you know it started to get likecrack open for me, you and
other trainers that I've beenfollowing a whole paradigm of
how to think about horses.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
And working through the fence is a great idea
because it does give the horsethe freedom to move away.
And if you're not workingthrough a fence, then you have
to just be extra careful towatch the body language and not
provoke the fear.
And Brandy, of course, had somevery big issues about having
different body parts touched.
And this is someplace where alot of people go wrong.

(43:50):
They first meet a horse andthey want to go in and touch the
horse all over.
And we've been told you knowthere's, there's trainers that
say, well, you, the horse,should allow you to touch and if
not, well then we'll have themdo laps in the round pen.
And that's not earning trust.
That's proving that you are nottrustworthy, because you

(44:11):
haven't really given the horse achoice.
You've put them between a rockand a hard place Either allow
touching I'm not comfortablewith or I have to run laps.
This is not a person I want tobe anywhere near.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
It sounds like a terrible first date.
You know right, it's a terriblefirst date.
I'm going to grab you and touchyou all over.
You know like, excuse me.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
So yeah, so I did with Brandy the same same thing.
You did just a little bitdifferent construct, because I
wasn't working through a fence,I didn't, I didn't sense any
well.
I think I was able to read herbody language well, enough that,
and she was very clear in herbody language.
So it's like okay, you cantouch my shoulders and my

(44:52):
withers and a little bit of myback, but don't touch my ears,
don't go behind me.
She had an absolute terror ofsomebody going behind her.
So we did, we did buttscratching from the side, but I
just worked to it, alwayslooking at where's her anxiety

(45:15):
level, and as soon as theanxiety went up, I backed off
and right, the common wisdom isoh well, then you're rewarding
her for getting anxious.
You can't reward feelings.
Feelings are what they are.
You don't encourage the feelingby by rewarding it.
What I was saying to her whenshe got anxious was I see that

(45:38):
you're anxious.
I respect that.
I'm not going to pressure youand scare you.
And so, after many of these,these incidents where she'd
start to worry about something,it's okay, we don't have to do
that right now.
Back off, we'll go back andscratch the bottom of the score,
the withers or whatever.
Wherever you want scratch now,we're cool.
I want to touch your hind legs,but okay, we can only go as far

(46:01):
as your flank.
That's all right.
We'll come back to that anothertime and that that is all
telling the horse.
This person is trustworthy.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
And it takes time.
Right, I mean it takes timelike this doesn't happen in two
days, I mean, unless your horsegets shut, is shut down and is
blocking out every experience,or or so anxious that he appears
shut down and then explodes.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Well, yes, and a lot of times when people think
they've got a bomb through force, what they've really got is a
time bomb, that horse, who, whohas been shut down.
So what they've done it, what'shappened is that you're no
longer going to see the warningsigns of anxiety.
They've been 20.
Don't show the warning signs ofanxiety.
Okay, so I'm going to hold itin.

(46:46):
I'm going to hold it in, andthat's when they blow up and you
can get there with with foodtoo.
By accident, I my husband'smayor was was very pushy about
food and it's funny.
My vet said we'll try clickertraining and I'm like what
that's it?

(47:06):
How's I going to help with food?
But of course it did, becauseit taught her oh, if I want food
, I have to do something to getit.
So she figured out for herselfif I stand at attention, I
nicker.
Okay, I'm going to treat, but Idon't get a treat if I'm
mugging somebody or leaning overand crying, I grab the food

(47:28):
from them.
So she learned to stand stillreally, really well.
So the first time I was going toput a blanket on her, I gave
her the signal to stand still.
She's standing still, standingstill, I'm getting the blanket
out and I didn't see until thelast minute.
I'm already to fling theblanket up over her shoulders
and I realized she is vibratingwith tension, absolutely

(47:49):
vibrating.
And if I had thrown thatblanket over her I have no doubt
she'd have exploded and we'dhave had 1100 pounds going every
which way.
And I'd been in the middle ofit when I saw that I said wait a
minute, put the blanket back.
I said okay, shiloh, let meexplain to you what we're going
to do here.
And I folded the blanket andthen we went through a slow

(48:10):
process and 10 minutes later theblanket was on, she was calm
and now you can fling a blanketanywhere, but you have to watch
when horses starting to getanxious, and if you miss those
early signs and they blow up,that's not the horse's fault,
that's that our failure to watchthe body language and before

(48:32):
warned.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Oh yeah, no, when I was sitting on that mare who I'd
been working with, climbing onher bareback from the fence, she
was trained, she'd been trained.
The Arab mare that I got hurton she'd been trained and stuff
like that.
But it had been a while andthen she'd had some bad
experiences.
I was sitting on her barebackand I said we can take a step,
you can do this, you can take astep.
And she stiffened and went andI'd never been on a horse that

(48:56):
bucked before.
I didn't know that was aprecursor to I'm going to buck.
So having a serious accidentreally opens up your mind to
being really aware of horse bodylanguage.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
For me the big, the big revelation.
I was about 15 or 16.
And I realized that having ahorse who was absolutely
obedient is downright dangerous.
Because I was working with ahorse who was a little rowdy and
I was really proud of myself.
He listened to me perfectly, hedid exactly everything I said,

(49:32):
every minute, and I gave him afaulty cue and we landed on top
of a jump, on top of a jump andwe landed in the heap and I had,
I had I don't know how long.
I was unconscious because therewas nobody else around.
And that's when I realized Idon't want a horse who always

(49:52):
obeys me.
I want a horse who thinks forhimself.
If he'd been thinking forhimself, he'd have, he'd have
just said we're not doing thatjob, I'm stopping.
But instead he obeyed and itdid not go well.
So I forever then appreciated ahorse who thinks for himself
and recognizes danger.
And that's another thing youlose when you have a horse who

(50:13):
is robotically obedient.
They will do things that aredangerous because they've been,
they've been so conditioned todo exactly what they're told, no
matter what, whether it makessense or not.
So you know actually when, whenI was thinking, when I was
working with Brandy and and thentrying to put together my book,

(50:36):
and the focus of my bookchanged multiple times in the
process, but by the time Brandyand I had been working together
for a while, I was able tocharacterize what actions do we
take to help a horse feel safewith us and have them want to be
with us and then become apartner we can really feel

(51:00):
comfortable with and feelconfident in, and I
characterized five specificthings that we can do, so I'd
like to just sort of give you anoverview of what those are.
The first one is what we'vebeen talking about is earning
trust, and a huge piece ofearning trust is respecting
their personal space.

(51:20):
You know you'll see people walkup to a horse and, just like,
grab the lead line of the reinsand expect the horse to walk
with them, or grab the reins toseek their foot in the stirrup
without even saying hello.
And when I meet a new horse, Ialways introduce myself, and I'm
amazed how many people areshocked that I'm ignoring them

(51:41):
and talking to their horse.
Now, when you meet dog people,they expect you to introduce
yourself to the dog.
Right?
What dog person's insulting?
You introduce yourself to thedog first.
But horse people aren't wrongwith this.
Yet we need to introduceourselves to a horse and that
means stop a little ways outsidethe horse's personal space.
His personal space is huge.

(52:02):
For horses it matters amongstthem.
Like you said earlier, theycan't gallop together in a herd
if you don't pay attention topersonal space.
So I always look for thepersonal space and as I'm
approaching the horse I look fordoes he turn an eye or an ear
toward me to acknowledge mypresence?
If he hasn't, I pause and ifhis body leans away from me, I

(52:28):
stop.
It's like when you approachpeople, you know just walk up to
a stranger and touch them.
That's creepy.
So why would you expect a horseto put up with that?
So the personal space is reallyhuge.
And then, like we were talkingabout a few minutes ago, the
touching.
That's all personal space.

(52:50):
There were some studies ofpeople grooming horses and
Showing that there were a lot ofdangerous behaviors because
horses were saying I'm notcomfortable with this, please
don't do that, and people wereignoring it in the interest of
getting the horse clean andready to tack up.
So we need to pay moreattention to how horses feel

(53:12):
about us in their personal spaceand what we do there.
The second we've also talkedabout is the clear body language
.
Make sure the horse understandsexactly what you want, so that
your body language and yourwishes are in line.
I see this often in videos ofpeople lunging a horse.
They're saying one thing andtheir whip is presumably

(53:33):
supposed to be telling the horsesomething, but their body
language is saying somethingcompletely different and so, and
then the horse is confused.
So we up the ante and add morepressure, which makes the horse
more confused, and Then we haveanxiety.
And then we have like the horseis thinking I don't want to be
near you, just just put me backin the pasture, go away.

(53:58):
Always, always, look at their attheir emotional state, and
Horses have well, all mammalshave seven core emotions.
Four of those are positiveemotions.
There's bonding and Curiosity,play and lust.

(54:21):
Of course, lust is not one ofthe positive emotions we
generally want to bring into ourrelationship in our training.
But if we look at the bonding,which comes a lot from
respecting their space and but alot of people miss the
curiosity in the play those arehuge ways to engage horses.

(54:41):
Curiosity is what I callinvestigative behavior,
encouraging horses to Be curiousabout things.
One of the one of the worstthings people do with horses,
especially with young ones, isis those desensitizing programs
when they want the horse to notreact when the person brings

(55:02):
some strange object toward them.
And so now you've become thesource of anxiety.
Why should this horse trust you?
So instead, if we useinvestigative behavior and
engage the horses curiosity,then we let the horse
investigate the thing.
So, for instance, I'm ridingdown the trail and there's

(55:23):
something weird on the trail infront of us.
Do I use pressure to make myhorse go past it and pretend
it's not there?
Then his view of me is I Seesomething I should be worried
about, and Lynn is so cluelessshe doesn't even know we ought
to be paying attention to thisthing.
How do I trust her as a leader?
So instead, we see somethingstrange.
Look to stop and look at it andGenerally, once my horse has

(55:48):
looked at it for a while, it'sgonna go closer and Maybe he's
gonna decide it's reallyworrisome.
If it's really really bad, Imight need to have to.
I might need to get off andwalk up to it first, because,
after all, you just go first.
Don't they Release good leadersto go first.
So okay, lynn, you prove to methat this thing safe and then we

(56:09):
can go past it.
It in the ring, we can do.
We can do even more than that.
We can just put out all sortsof different things to let
horses look at me with use theircuriosity, and when you're
associated with curiosity andDiscovery and fun things, that's

(56:30):
bonding.
It's the fourth well, we uselearning modes other than
pressure and release and,ironically, other than positive
reinforcement.
Okay, positive reinforcementcan be great, but that's those.
Those are only two of the waysthat horses learn.
They also learn through sociallearning, like we talked about
earlier, where the horse iscopying what you're doing.

(56:51):
They learn by copying otherhorses and and and watch out,
horses can be copying things youdon't realize they're copying
too.
Brandy is a wizard duckingunder her stall guard.
We can no longer use a stallguard at the front of her stall.
We have to shut the doorbecause she knows how to stick
her head underneath and zipright out of the stall, and I

(57:13):
suspect she learned that bywatching me do it sure?

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Oh yeah, I grew up art.
My, my mentor at the farm saiddon't crawl through the fence,
the horses will crawl rightthrough too.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
I can.
I can, I can just picture,especially if you have ponies or
a agile small horses, yeah, sosocial learning and
investigative behavior are theare the third and fourth modes
of learning that actually engagehorses.
Intelligence Because positiveand negative reinforcement We've

(57:48):
decided what we want the horseto do and we're we're Providing
reinforcement, either positiveor negative, to get the horse to
do what we've already decidedthey need to do.
Investigative behavior isIndependent learning for the
horse.
He's using all of his differentsenses to when, when he

(58:09):
approaches, he sees something,he hears it, he smells it.
Horses have an incredible senseof smell.
They're actually being used forsearch and rescue Because their
sense of smell is so muchbetter than ours and actually,
yeah, pretty close to dog.
So this now becomes independentcognitive learning.
So once I've let a horseinvestigate something new, it is

(58:32):
never a source of fear againbecause he's observed it, he's
Smelled it, seen it, listen toit, possibly touched and tasted
it, which is and brandy will goall in Anything new.
She's ready to check it out,because new things are no longer
scary, new things are more likegames.

(58:52):
So that's becomes an antidoteto fear as well as as a learning
mode.
And the because curiosity isone of the core emotions.
Learning through using thecuriosity is intrinsically
rewarding, and this is morepowerful Than any external

(59:15):
reward, any treat that we couldpossibly give.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Fun, oh yeah, I think of how a child learns the same
principle is all of us actually.
Yeah, okay, so that was thethree things.
Is there two more?

Speaker 1 (59:31):
The last one, number five, is protecting horses from
unnecessary stress, and we can'tprotect them from all stress,
so I make a distinction.
Unnecessary stress is thingslike waving whips at them,
chasing them around, anypressure that we put on them
that it doesn't, it doesn't needto be there.
But life brings lots of stress,things like that, visits, for

(59:55):
instance, new situations and soinstead of trying to protect
horses from these things, wewant to Teach them how to cope
with them so that they're moreresilient.
The more time that we can helpthem spend in a positive
emotional state, then the moreresilient they are when bad

(01:00:15):
things happen.
So brandy found that it waspretty safe being with me and
Nice things happened.
We did lots of investigativebehavior.
We went for walks, we playedwith things, but you know that's
a good thing, um, but you knowthe vets gonna come, the fairies
gonna come, says chiropractorand the dentist, and we need to

(01:00:39):
help them be ready for theseevents.
So I played that, I played fair, your, I played chiropractor.
You know, short of doinganything that you know that
requires skill that I don't have, but I played with the body
parts.
I stood up on a hay bale nextto brandy or on a stool next to
her so that I Was over her back,like the chiropractor does when

(01:01:02):
she's making adjustments on theback.
So I Was able to get heraccustomed to things like this
Over time, without with nopressure.
No, no need to like well, wehave to get the job done because
the vets on a schedule, yeah.

(01:01:24):
So I prepared her to cope withthese things and I let them know
by mimicking shots, which was agreat idea I got from.
One of my vets is mimickingshots, as brandy was petrified I
mean she choked one time andthe vet said give her, told us
what to give her an injection ofit.
We couldn't do it because shewas too terrified.
I thought, well, this isn'tgood.
So we worked with it and nowall of my horses know that after

(01:01:48):
they've gotten a shot or afterthey've gotten blood drawn, this
is going to be a big fat cookiereward.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
All right, all right.
Well, this has been pretty,pretty interesting.
I'm, of course, we're alllearning a lot from you.
Now we're gonna get to the partof the show that we call treat
time and the questions, and soUsually I have like cookies or
something, but I didn't havetime to bake, so I had these
beautiful grapes that we'regonna, and if you were here We'd
be partaking, but anyway.

(01:02:22):
So that's that's just kind of anice break treat time and Then
we're gonna go right into thequestions.
Now I sent you An intake formand on it was a series of
questions.
We copied this idea from workSchiller, who of course you
probably know a horse trainerand and podcaster.
He actually copied the ideafrom Tim Ferriss's book tribe of

(01:02:47):
mentors, so we just got to givecredit, okay.
So I asked you to pick five ofthe questions of the 20 I sent,
and so we'll start with thefirst one what book would you
recommend and why?

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Well, I would, you know modesty, I'll recommend or
recommend mine, because, as Ilooked around, as I said earlier
, many people have the rightphilosophy of let's watch the
horses Emotions and tune intothose and make that an integral
part of our training so thehorses can feel safe with us,

(01:03:22):
because that's what they reallywant.
But I couldn't find anybody anyother books that explained how
to do it, and that's why I feltthis was my.
This was something I needed todo was to let me lay this out as
as clearly and succinctly aspossible, with Brandy
demonstrating in photos, bronzedoing some of the demonstrations

(01:03:43):
and that so that that peoplecould see most people can do
this themselves.
At least pieces of thiseverybody can do for themselves,
and I think a lot of women inparticular Underestimate their
own ability to work with theirown horses Because they get
caught up in.
Well, this guy knows more thanI do.

(01:04:04):
He's got he's got all thisexperience and I've just got
this one horse.
But Mostly people read theirown horses very well and when
you tune in, tune into yourhorses feelings, most women are
able to work with them a wholelot more than they think they
can.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
I agree 100%.
Okay, what is the most valuablething that you put your time
into?
That has changed the course ofyour life?

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
I was researching for the book when I realized that
Brandy was looking to me to helpher and I didn't know what to
do.
I I got busy and, in additionto that very lucky break, I had
seeing that young trainerworking with the traumatized
pony.
I also used all of myEquestrian background and all of

(01:04:54):
my academic background toresearch what have other people
done?
What if they made work?
And then how do we put ittogether and make it work for us
regular people, not not thepeople who are going to be in
the Olympics or doing Shows, butthose of us who have our horses
at home and we just want tohave a good bond and feel safe
and comfortable and enjoy thetime that we spend with them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
I Think that everybody wants that with their
horse for sure.
Mm-hmm.
What is the worst advice givenin your profession or a bad idea
that you hear of in your fieldof expertise?

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Be your horse's boss.
Your horse wants to nominateyou.
You need to be dominant overyour horse, because otherwise
your horse will take over.
I Really start to wonder ifthis doesn't come from people
who are actually afraid of theirhorses because they're they're
so adamant about never let thehorse in your space and you have
to move the horses feet.
Well, no, if my horse is scared, I don't need to move her feet,

(01:05:50):
I need to let her calm downfirst.
Exactly, yes, my horse isalways welcome in my space if
she's gentle, and this issomething horses totally
understand.
Mm-hmm, in in a horse group.
You can go into somebody else'sspace if you're polite about it
.
Right, and my horse only getsthis.
They're always welcome in myspace because they know they're
gonna be.

(01:06:10):
They need to be gentle, butthey also know that when I go
into their space I'm going to begentle.
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Okay, what inspires and motivates you to do what you
do and what is your truepurpose in the world?

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
I Love to help people figure out for themselves how
to be independent and workbetter with their horses.
I'm not looking to have a bigfollowing.
I don't want to be anybody'sguru.
So many people really have theright, the right mindset, the
right heart to work well withtheir horses and I want to give

(01:06:48):
them the tools to be able to doit independently and so that
they can.
They can feel more confidentand be safer and happier with
their horses.
For sure.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Okay, the last question what did you want to be
as a child and how close didyou get to that dream?

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
I I Wanted to be a horse Psychologist.
Oh, and I thought to myself asa kid Well, there is no such
thing, so I guess I have to dosomething else, and I'm not
coordinated coordinated enoughto be a great rider or trainer,
so I Guess I have to go tocollege instead.
But you know, it all fittogether in the end.

(01:07:27):
Everything that I learnedacademically relates to horses
and and, and I guess in a way Iam, of course, psychologist in
that the thing that I am mostfascinated with is how horses
think and feel, and that's whereI've been putting a lot of my
studying now is taking some ofCarolina Westlands courses,
because she is is absolutelybrilliant at explaining animal

(01:07:50):
emotions.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
Well then like.
I said we and our horses arelucky that that you chose this
path.
Okay so I'm gonna hold up yourbook one more time because I'm
so excited about this.
Where can people find this book?
Where can they get in touchwith you?
I mean, we will include allthese links on the show notes
and things like that, but if youwant to share with us, how do

(01:08:12):
we, how do we learn more aboutwhat you're doing and how to
find your book?

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
But you can find my book at Trafalgar Square books,
which is my publisher, and alsoan Amazon, and in UK and New
Zealand and Australia there'sother publishers.
I've got all of the the linkson my website and it's been
translated into Polish and sothere's also a Polish Publisher
and I've got all those links soyou can find more about me on my

(01:08:40):
website.
I've got lots of articles andblogs and I post regularly on
Facebook and I usually postquestions on Facebook and I have
a very active Group of peoplewho respond with lots of insight
.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
Oh yeah, I'm quite sure that's how I found you.
It was on Facebook, because Ifollow you and it's always
thought-provoking, interesting,worth the read.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Thank you, that's my goal, and there's so many people
who've had varied experiencesand are very insightful, and so
when I post the articles andblogs on my website, I often
include what I've learned from,from as as they respond to my
questions on Facebook.
Yeah, it's a cool thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Well, this has been a great experience I just like
makes me want to go work with myhorses right now.
Try some of the things I'mlearning.
We're all very grateful for you, linth, for coming on our show
and, like I said, we'll have allthe information on the web, on
the on our website that connectsto all your stuff, and thank

(01:09:47):
you again for coming.
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Thanks for inviting me, barbara.
It's been my pleasure.